What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes? • Hacker News Board

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#101

Post by cmrdporcupine » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #81

matwood wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can generate $50m of revenue by working 2 hours a day then you're brilliant at your job Sure, but Google and other big tech have a completely different problem. Their one product makes so much money, that there is not a natural forcing function for other ventures to succeed or fail. This lets them take moonshots, but also makes it easy to slip into making bad investment decisions. For example, green-lighting…

> Their one product makes so much money, that there is not a natural forcing function for other ventures to succeed or fail. This is what appalled me about Pichai’s productivity comment. Google may not have high productivity, but that’s not its problem. The company has just drifted since Schmidt stopped running it, reminiscent of Microsoft in the second half (and before?) of the Ballmer period. The ladder-climbing PM…

Before I left Google, and in the BeforeTimes(tm) Schmidt came to our Google office in Waterloo and did a little all-hands thing and spoke. Not in a capacity as Google mgmt or decision maker but as himself. It was interesting.

One of the things he said that stuck out to me was basically "I am baffled how these really large teams you have can work I can't imagine software development working well beyond a handful of engineers before the telephone game problem kicks in" [paraphrased].

Me too, Eric, me too.

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#102

Post by kache_ » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

>freeze

Yeah, unless you're a staff engineer :P

The fight over STSMs is only getting more brutal. More like a freeze on training engineers up to become staff members

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#103

Post by andsoitis » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 1:14 PM UTC

Dave3of5 wrote: post #72

choeger wrote: post #8

My hunch is that these companies are cargo-culting their strategies. The hiring freeze is as essentially a gut reaction. If one starts with layoffs, others will follow. The real problem is that companies of the Google scale will always need new engineers for particular projects and have a surplus for others. A global freeze or even layoffs simply don't fit.

> My hunch is that these companies are cargo-culting their strategies Yes most of these tech companies are the same. Their strategy is based off what other successful companies are doing. Also they want shareholders / investors to be on board. @paulg himself started this run with an email telling investors and companies to turtle up and stop hiring. The whole thing has become a self perpetuating loop. Companies also…

> blaming their poor performance on this downturn

Do you think their poor performance is primarily due to something other than this downturn?

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#104

Post by cmrdporcupine » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 1:14 PM UTC

The people I know who are still inside (Google) seem optimistic that maybe the company is taking a pause to deal with some of its bureaucracy and internal politics issues and with people's complaints about perf. I suppose that's good.

From my perspective: They've got way too many people doing a lot of meh work and feeling really ... important about it. And it's on the whole asphyxiating the industry.

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#105

Post by yardstick » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 1:14 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #59

cromka wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you calculate in the weak Zloty into that sum?

remote contractor == likely paid in USD

Exactly.

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#106

Post by yardstick » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 1:15 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #52

Tade0 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number my friend got was considerably less than that. Very concerning. Of course this is all hearsay. I don't know how real that figure is, but it's not particularly inspiring so I don't see why would anyone lie about it.

The comment above mentions a contract engineer, so a consultant, presumably. Maybe the salaries are lower for regular employees.

Yeah can’t comment for local employees of local companies. Just have knowledge of UK & US companies hiring/outsourcing to Poland. It was cheap, not so much anymore.

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#107

Post by TecoAndJix » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 1:16 PM UTC

s1k3s wrote: post #87

Their data is based on a survey. According to LinkedIn, the following number of jobs per company have been created in the past week: Google 7k+ Apple 2k+ Amazon 39k+ Meta 2k+ If anyone has that premium feature (I don't have it anymore), you can check how the numbers changed over time.

Here are screenshots of the LinkedIn Premium insights:

Google - https://pasteboard.co/X7VROVRXt9rE.png Apple - https://pasteboard.co/ILHP3rzuCmCZ.png Amazon - https://pasteboard.co/fKxc5gF1YIi5.png Meta - https://pasteboard.co/OSHCnfUE4V1B.png

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#108

Post by ahmadss » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 1:16 PM UTC

kleinsch wrote: post #75

Google has always recruited and interviewed independently of whether they actually have roles open that make sense for you. Earlier this year, I passed the interview and spent six weeks in "team match" before I gave up and took a role with another company. Had a friend who did the same for months for a PM role. Just bc you're getting contacted by Google recruiters this week or interviewing doesn't mean you'll ever fi…

A friend of mine spent ended up spending 9 months in the Google pipeline for a PM role. During the early phases of the cycle (1 month in) he received and accepted an offer at Capital One and joined as a PM. Spent 7 months at Capital One while still interviewing for Google, and then managed to get an offer and team placement.

Surprised it took that long, but he's happy he stuck w the Google process.

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#109

Post by coliveira » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 1:19 PM UTC

They don't really need to stop hiring, they just need to match the number of people leaving the company (which is always happening).

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#110

Post by chem83 » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 1:22 PM UTC

bena wrote: post #99

kleinsch wrote: post #75

Google has always recruited and interviewed independently of whether they actually have roles open that make sense for you. Earlier this year, I passed the interview and spent six weeks in "team match" before I gave up and took a role with another company. Had a friend who did the same for months for a PM role. Just bc you're getting contacted by Google recruiters this week or interviewing doesn't mean you'll ever fi…

It kind of makes sense to keep people in the pipeline as it were. If you shut down the whole apparatus, you have to spin it back up when hiring is unfrozen. But if you keep the machine running, you're ready to hire the instant you can. For them that is. Sucks for you and me.

At Google, upon entering the process, recruiters explain that an offer within engineering (including PM, T/PgM etc.) is valid for 12 months from the date of approval from the hiring committee. So while it can take a long time for someone to find a team match, that flexibility is also available for the candidate, so they get to keep declining teams that are not interesting until a real match for both sides is available.

At Facebook, it's possible to match before starting, but candidates usually try to do the matching in the 2 weeks (or so) of training they do in Menlo Park. It's up to them to cold call and find time with hiring managers to sell themselves (and vice-versa). But time-wise, the process is much more constrained than Google's.